loose file loader

Allows the game to load unpacked loose files from outside game saves.

Loose File Loader

The loose file loader allows Nioh 3 to load loose files directly from disk, allowing you to overwrite game assets without having to repack saves. 🎮

✨ Core Functions

• **Load Asset Override**: Load asset override files from the `/mods` directory.
• **Widely Compatible**: Supports any asset type (models, textures, animation/data files, etc.) that games can typically deserialize.
• **Keep vanilla behavior**: Keep the game's vanilla behavior when no files are overwritten.
• **Deterministic conflict handling**: Provides deterministic loading order handling when multiple modules modify the same file.

🎯 Why is it so useful?

**For players:**

• 🚀 Install or remove mods via simple file copy/remove.
• 🛠️ No need for complicated archive repackaging process.

**For modders:**

• ⚡ Quickly replace assets for previewing/testing.
• 🔄 Iterate over the same file path to verify in-game effects faster.
• 🧪 Avoid a complete package rebuild and game restart for every small tweak.
• 🔍 Combine archive extraction and runtime logging to locate target resource IDs faster.
• 📉 Shorten the complete development cycle during mod creation (Find Target -> Edit -> Test -> Tweak).

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📦 Installation Guide

• **Make sure you have installed** the required Nioh 3 plugin loader.
• **Copy** `LooseFileLoader.dll` to the `/plugins/` directory.
• **Create** the `/mods/` folder if it does not exist.
• **Launch the game once** to confirm that the plug-in is initialized successfully.

🎮 Instructions for use (players)

• **Place module files**: Place the module files into the `/mods/` or `/mods//` directory.
• **Start the game**.

**Example directory structure:**

```

/mods/0xA1B2C3D4.g1m

/mods/MyModPack1/0x11A34982.g1t

/mods/MyModPack1/0x7DC6EBD9.g1t

/mods/MyModPack2/0x6E7A0710.g1t

/mods/MyModPack2/0x695BBBFB.g1t

/mods/MyModPack2/0xA0B0DD1D.g1m

```

Conflicts and loading order

If multiple mods modify the same file, the plugin will keep the first file found in the following **deterministic order**:

• Files in the root directory of `mods`.
• Then the files in the first-level subfolders are sorted in alphabetical order (not case-sensitive).

🛠️ Instructions for use (mod author)

Find Resource ID (RDB Browser + Log)

• You can use RDB Explorer to browse/extract assets from game archives.
• LooseFileLoader will write asset loading information to the plug-in log when the game is running.
• Modders can use these log entries to identify the asset ID (`fileId`) being read in the current scene, then export those assets from the archive and replace them as loose files.
• **Workflow**: Identify ID in logs -> Export from archive -> Edit -> Place in `mods` folder -> Verify in game.

Log file location

• **Main log file**: `C:\Users\\Documents\LooseFileLoader.log`
• The logger uses file rotation, so you may also see rotated history files (e.g. `.1`).
• Asset loading logs are disabled by default. To print the resource loading log, set `EnableAssetLoadingLog=1` in the `/plugins/LooseFileLoader.ini` file.

Iterative workflow

• Keep the same filename/path when testing and overwrite the file contents.
• Trigger asset reloads in-game (scene reloads, map switches, gear/menu refreshes, etc.) to preview updates.
• If you added completely new overlay files (new hashes), please restart the game so that the index on startup contains them.

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🗑️ Uninstall method

• Remove `LooseFileLoader.dll` from the `/plugins/` directory.
• (Optional) Remove any files you added under `/mods/`.
• After uninstalling, the game will fall back to the original packaged assets.

❓ Troubleshooting

• **Override Not Loaded**:

Verify that the body of the file name is exactly 8 hexadecimal digits (`0x` prefix is ​​optional), verify that the file is in the `mods` root directory or a first-level subfolder, and verify that no other mod has priority loading rights to the f …